May 29th, 2008

Parallel Computing Platform at TechEd 2008

Stephen Toub - MSFT
Partner Software Engineer

website_banner_main

Heading to TechEd 2008? Come discover some of the exciting technologies the Parallel Computing Platform team is working on.

We’re presenting four sessions on parallelism at the Developer conference:

DVP205
The Microsoft Parallel Computing Initiative: Bringing Concurrency to the Masses
Tuesday, June 3 10:30 AM – 11:45 AM, S210 B

Software is headed for a fundamental change. Over the last 30 years, developers have relied on exponential growth in computing power in order to write applications that run fast. However, whereas the average PC clock speed increased more than ten-fold between 1993 and 1999, the average processor speed in the last four years hasn’t even doubled. Instead, the hardware industry is shifting to multi-core and manycore processors. The average PC on the market today is a dual-core. Next year, expect the average to be quad-core. Two years after that, eight-core. Unfortunately, most software today is single-threaded in nature and will not take advantage of multiple processors. The key to high-performance applications in the future is parallelism. In this session, we explore the need for concurrency, as well as what Microsoft is doing through its programming languages, libraries, runtimes, and tools to help developers leverage parallelism in their code.

DVP304
Parallelize Your Microsoft .NET Framework-Based Applications with Parallel Extensions
Wednesday, June 4 10:15 AM – 11:30 AM, S220 A

With the Microsoft .NET Framework today, correctly introducing concurrency into libraries and applications is difficult, time consuming, and error-prone. However, as the hardware industry shifts towards multi-core and manycore processors, the key to high-performance applications is parallelism. Parallel Extensions to the .NET Framework offers solutions to help make writing concurrent applications significantly easier. In this session, we dive into Parallel Extensions, exploring Parallel LINQ-to-Objects (PLINQ), the Task Parallel Library (TPL), the underlying concurrency runtime, and more, in order to provide an in-depth look at the next generation of parallel programming with .NET.

DVP316
Simplify Parallel Application Debugging and Profiling with Concurrency Tools in Microsoft Visual Studio
Thursday, June 5 8:30 AM – 9:45 AM, S330 C

Developing software doesn’t begin and end with writing code. Tools are incredibly important in the life cycle of applications, especially when it comes to debugging and improving performance. This is never more true than when writing parallel applications, as concurrency introduces a whole host of issues that can be very difficult to find and fix. In this talk, we explore difficulties with debugging and profiling concurrent applications, and we dive into powerful new tools being introduced in Visual Studio to improve their development.

TLA327
Parallelize Your Microsoft Visual C++ Applications with the Concurrency Runtime
Friday, June 6 8:30 AM – 9:45 AM, S310 A

Introducing concurrency into native Visual C++ applications has long been the domain of true experts and gurus. Yet, as the hardware industry shifts toward multi-core and manycore processors, all developers will need to be able to write robust and scalable parallel applications. As part of its work on Visual C++ and Visual Studio, the Parallel Computing Platform team is building a key set of technologies that will enable the development of such applications. In this talk, we explore libraries for expressing concurrency, a set of messaging APIs that allow developers to consistently build parallel applications that are robust and resilient, and a shared user-mode runtime for scheduling and for coordinating system resources. Come learn about these exciting new technologies that will help bring concurrency to the masses.

Heading to the IT Professional conference?  No problem: we’re presenting there, too!

APP253
The Manycore Shift: Bringing Concurrency to the Masses
Tuesday, June 10 3:00 PM – 4:15 PM, N220 A

Recent advances in microelectronic technology and the advent of multi-core and manycore processors are a signal that a large industry change is on the horizon. The computational power of manycore processors, new programming models and platforms, and advanced research in usability promises to change the way people interact with computers. As a result, software is headed for a fundamental change. Over the last 30 years, developers have relied on exponential growth in computing power in order to write applications that run fast. However, whereas the average PC clock speed increased more than 10x between 1993 and 1999, the average processor speed in the last four years hasn’t even doubled. Instead, the hardware industry is shifting to multi-core and manycore processors. The average PC on the market today is a dual-core. Next year, expect the average to be quad-core. Two years after that, eight-core. Unfortunately, most software today will not take advantage of multiple processors. The key to high-performance applications in the future is parallelism, and IT professionals need to be intimately aware of this coming shift so that the applications and scripts they develop can fully utilize all available processing power. In this session, we explore the need for concurrency as well as what Microsoft is doing through its programming languages, libraries, runtimes, and tools to help developers and IT professionals leverage parallelism in their code.

We’re looking forward to seeing you there!

Author

Stephen Toub - MSFT
Partner Software Engineer

Stephen Toub is a developer on the .NET team at Microsoft.

0 comments

Discussion are closed.